The Blowback Protocol: A Sam Jameson Thriller

by Emmerich, Lars

  “Smile,” the man said as he disappeared behind a computer and a gigantic printer. “You don’t want to look suspicious.”

  Sam complied. Moments later, the oversized printer whirred to life. It produced a Maryland driver’s license with Sam’s likeness next to the name “Elizabeth Allyson Kincaid.”

  “Looks real,” Sam said, impressed.

  “It is real,” the man replied.

  Fix put on an impish grin and answered Sam’s unspoken query. “You’re paying for quality,” he said. “What could possibly be better than the real thing?”

  “DMV employee?” Sam asked.

  “Just a concerned citizen of the earth,” the man replied, as the printer whirred again. It spat out a library card, then a gym membership card, and finally a National News Network correspondent’s badge.

  A second device produced a Visa card, complete with a holographic verification symbol superimposed over Sam’s likeness. Sam suspected that Elizabeth Kincaid had been the victim of identity theft, but she didn’t have any qualms about using the woman’s stolen credit card. The banks had become exceptionally savvy about reimbursing their members for unauthorized and suspicious charges. It was still theft, but some giant multi-national bank would be the victim, not Elizabeth Kincaid. The card wouldn’t be good for more than one or two uses, but sometimes that made all the difference.

  The man repeated the entire process, this time with the name Catherine Bachner printed beneath Sam’s picture on the various identification and credit cards. Two identities were nowhere near enough, but it was a start, and Sam didn’t want to burn all her cash reserves obtaining expensive backup legends.

  “Our friend isn’t just a concerned citizen,” Fix said as Sam inspected the merchandise. “He’s also an entrepreneur, which brings us to the question of fees.”

  Sam extracted a wad of folded bills from her pocket and held it out. Fix reached for it, but Sam tightened her grip. “I’ll need you to destroy the hard drive with my photo,” she said.

  Fix smiled. “Of course. It’s already factored into the price.”

  Sam watched as the man extracted the drive from the cheap tower computer, dismantled the cover, removed the magnetic media inside the disk, and fed it through an industrial-sized shredder. Satisfied, she took her leave.

  “It was a pleasure,” Fix said as they ascended the staircase. “If you’re looking to party a little bit, I know a few sources. They could be here in a couple of minutes.”

  Sam felt the heat of his gaze on her backside and suspected that her curves were at least partially responsible for his upsell offer. She turned and smiled politely. “Maybe next time,” she said.

  Fix nodded. “Next time, then.”

  “But there is something else,” she said. “I could use a lift.”

  Half an hour later, Sam stepped out of Fix’s ride, an opulent Land Rover decked out with all the options. “When do I get to see you again?” he asked with affected nonchalance, handing her a business card.

  Playing along, Sam took the card. “No telling when I might need a little something,” she said.

  “I’m your man,” Fix said.

  Not even close, she thought as she closed the car door. Sam waved as Fix drove out of the convenience store parking lot. Then she set off to cover the half-mile distance to the seedy Americana Motel on foot. She took side streets and alleyways, pausing several times to make sure she wasn’t being followed, and arrived at the hotel just after midnight.

  She didn’t present a credit card at the check-in counter, and the only photos the clerk cared to see were likenesses of long-dead presidents rendered in green ink. The motel seemed to cater to off-the-books transactions, which suited Sam’s purposes perfectly.

  She found and unlocked her room, secured the door, and walked straight to the bed. She peeled back the covers and lay down fully dressed. No telling if a quick getaway would be required. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  6

  Sam slept fitfully, her dreams haunted by wailing mourners and angry, accusing faces demanding justice for her failures. In her misery, Sam agreed with their hateful chorus.

  Dawn finally arrived to end her torment. Sam showered, drank a cup of godawful swill mislabeled as coffee, and used a fresh burner to call her deputy’s off-the-books cell phone number. She and Dan had found themselves in many situations over the years that required anonymous and untraceable communications. No method was truly secure, but prepaid phones were a good start, and they always kept fresh burners handy.

  “How do you wind up in these situations?” Dan wanted to know.

  “Born lucky, I guess,” she said, trying to rub the sting out of her tired eyes. “Any ideas?”

  “None. This all sounds too organized and over the top for the Doberman people.”

  “My thought too,” Sam said. “Doberman seems dime store. This was a difficult move to make. They had to hack my security system password and vault access codes. That took some doing.”

  “That sounds damn close to professional-grade,” Dan agreed. “Someone from your long and checkered past?”

  “Maybe. But why now?”

  “Why ever? They saw an opportunity, maybe.”

  “Impossible to say, which leaves me back at square one.”

  “You have made an enemy or two over the years,” Dan said. “Compiling a list of your haters would take all week.”

  “Thanks. Why did I call you again?”

  “Comic relief.”

  “You’re fired. For the moment, maybe we should assume the break-in was somehow related to Doberman. Let’s look closely at our arrests and probables and see what comes up.”

  “We haven’t run a four-tier background check on anybody in the Doberman case yet,” Dan said. “Didn’t seem worth the trouble.”

  “Seems worth the trouble now,” Sam said.

  “I’ll let you know what comes up.”

  “Thanks. And I need a couple of new IDs, too, clean ones. And make sure they’re off the books.”

  “Anything else? Can I pick up your dry cleaning?”

  Sam smiled. “Thanks, Dan. You’re a lifesaver. I’ll put you in for a raise,” she said. “If I don’t get crucified first.”

  She sat on the bed, still struggling to come to grips with all that had happened over the past few days, and especially over the past few hours. Less than a week ago, she was poised to finish a lengthy investigation by taking down a nascent terror financing operation. Now, she found herself in a seedy hotel room, suspended from Homeland, running from unseen forces and reeling to figure out who might have her in the crosshairs. She shook her head. Jesus, what a week.

  7

  Sweat trickled down James Hayward’s back. The hot sun and vicious humidity were in full force. He couldn’t see his CIA watchers, but he could feel their presence.

  He pulled his hat low on his brow and walked swiftly through the academic enclave northeast of the intersection of Ang Mo Kyo Avenues Five and Eight. Crests of Singapore’s prestigious Nanyang Polytechnic adorned all the buildings in sight, except for the one he entered.

  Inside the first set of double doors and situated just beyond a stylized logo that read ChemEspaña was a card reader and keypad. Hayward removed the identification badge from his pocket, swiped it in front of the reader, and typed in the code.

  The door yielded to reveal a spacious air-conditioned lobby attended by a bored-looking guard who paid Hayward no mind as he walked past. Hayward summoned an elevator and swiped his access badge across another card reader. He typed the numeric code and selected a floor marked “R.” As the elevator doors closed, he wondered if the letter stood for “restricted.”

  The elevator deposited him in a small nondescript lobby. He readjusted his hat to prevent a clear view of his face from the security camera overhead, then swiped the access badge for a third time at an entrance marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” He heard a latch retreat and he pushed open the door, which felt heavy for its size
.

  His heart thudded in his chest as another surge of adrenaline coursed through him. Please be here, he pleaded as he walked down a long hallway of closed doors, each with its own keycard reader.

  His eyes darted between doors, watching for signs of anyone entering the hallway, but the building appeared to be just as empty of people as Hayward had been promised. Something about a ChemEspaña awards luncheon.

  The lurching sensation in his gut was uncomfortable but familiar. It reminded him of the way he felt when he used to steal secrets from the US Embassy in Caracas. That little misadventure ended three years ago but it felt like another era entirely. Hayward was a different man now. Sober. Skilled. No longer a third-rate economist rotting in a cubicle selling useless secrets because he was bored and drunk and stupid. Now a third-rate CIA slave struggling to get through the last mission of his miserable little life, he thought bitterly.

  He stopped at door R23, played the security card game for a fourth time, and stepped inside. The room was completely dark and had the unmistakable sound and smell of computer equipment. He paused to let his eyes adjust, not daring to turn on the lights, and located the object of his mission: the two-drawer safe in the corner of the room.

  His hands tingled with nerves. He walked deliberately to the safe, fished a small flashlight from his pocket, and worked the electronic lock on the bottom drawer of the safe, reciting the combination in his mind.

  His breathing shallowed as he completed the sequence of numbers, his hands trembling slightly. The clack of the latch startled him. It was terrifyingly loud. He held his breath. If he were caught, the whole thing would be over in a flash and he would surely die in vain.

  And so would she, along with her mother and father.

  Seconds passed. He heard no movement in the hallway. He twisted the latch and slowly pulled the drawer open.

  He played the small flashlight over the open safe drawer. Panic rose in his chest. “No,” he whispered. “This can’t be.” He shoved one hand inside the drawer, and then both, feeling around frantically for what he needed.

  But it was no use. The safe was empty.

  His mind raced. Where the hell was it? Joao had promised! Returning empty-handed was not an option. It would mean the deal was off, and that was not an acceptable turn of events. They were waiting for him to emerge from the building with the package. Then they would whisk him away and kill him. Painlessly, they promised. His life for hers. Katrin and her family would be left alone. He was responsible for their predicament and he would make it right. It would be his last act on Earth. It was bitter and unfathomable, but Hayward couldn’t imagine trying to live each day with her blood on his hands. It would haunt him, rot him from the inside, kill him a thousand times over.

  But returning without the package? The consequences would be dire. His death would be protracted and miserable. And so would hers.

  Hayward couldn’t bear to ponder what they would do to her, the violations and atrocities they would inflict trying to extract what they wanted. He’d seen it firsthand and he’d lived it himself. He couldn’t imagine Katrin Ferdinand-Xavier’s fine, delicate frame enduring the onslaught for long.

  He shuddered. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he felt sick. He’d been trained for situations like this, but today was different. Everything had changed in an instant. He stared at the empty safe. The hard drive was gone, and with it, all his leverage. He had to get to her, to protect her, to somehow stave off the inevitable for long enough to secure her escape. But how?

  He struggled to focus his mind. He hadn’t seen his watchers during his ingress to the ChemEspaña building, but he knew they were there. They would undoubtedly be stationed somewhere with an unobstructed view of the building’s entrance, waiting for him to walk out. Four of them, at least, if they kept to Company policy. Probably more, given that he was a trained agent with better-than-average field skills. Could he fool them long enough to get somewhere safe? Where could he possibly go?

  There was the Yio Chu Kang SMRT subway station at the northwestern end of the Nanyang Polytechnic campus, but that would entail traveling in the opposite direction from his planned egress. They would know within two steps that he was up to something.

  There was a second SMRT station a couple of miles south of campus, but he would have to somehow slip right past the agents stationed at his pickup point to make it that far. Those odds were just as slim.

  There’s always a way, he reminded himself. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply through his nose, and tried to clear his mind. Blood raced through his veins; it sounded like a flood in his ears.

  A flood!

  The idea was nothing short of reckless, but he saw no other way.

  Quickly, Hayward locked the safe, padded to the exit, cracked the door, and, spotting no one in the hallway, made for the elevator. It arrived an agonizing minute later. Hayward held his breath as the doors parted, but there was no one inside.

  He stepped in and studied the controls carefully. It took him a moment to locate the floor he wanted, marked “SB,” or sub-basement. There was no guarantee it would contain what he needed, but he was critically short of good ideas, so it was worth a try.

  He calmed his nerves as the elevator descended, exhaling in relief as the elevator passed the ground floor without stopping. Was fortune suddenly on his side? He hoped so. He was past due for a positive turn, he figured.

  The elevator came to a halt and the door opened into a dim, dank space. It smelled strongly of stagnant water and a steady drip echoed from somewhere in the darkness. Hayward took that as an encouraging sign.

  He stepped forward into the gloom, his flashlight beam beating back a small swath of darkness. The space was completely undeveloped, save for a chain-link cage in the corner containing various janitorial supplies. The concrete floor was smooth, sloped, and damp, and Hayward nearly lost his footing as he made his way to the lowest point of the sub-basement.

  The slope of the concrete floor evened out and Hayward found himself standing on a large drainage grate. Suspended above the grate by a chain was a large metal sign with an admonishment written in the four official languages of Singapore. Hayward read the English line: “Warning: Flash Flood Emergency Drain. DO NOT BLOCK.”

  Hayward picked the lock on the janitor’s supply cage, liberated a sturdy metal bucket and a mop with a long metal handle, and returned to the flood drain. He wedged the mop handle into the large grate, set the bucket upside-down to use as a fulcrum, and applied his weight to the end of the mop.

  The grate did nothing, then groaned, then separated from its jamb with a loud metallic screech. Hayward paused and listened, heart racing, expecting fast footfalls and loud voices, fearful the noise would bring unwanted attention. But he heard only the steady drip of water.

  He reached for the exposed edge of the grate, grasped it with his hands, and hefted the grate open on its hinges. He kept pushing until gravity took over on the opposite side and the drain cover crashed wide open onto the concrete floor.

  He took a moment to catch his breath. When the reverberations subsided, Hayward listened intently. There were no footsteps, no angry shouts, no signs anyone had noticed the noise. There was only the faint sound of rushing water.

  Hayward shined his flashlight into the dark abyss of the massive flood drain. Its yawning maw swallowed the beam of light. It looked infinitely deep. More adrenaline surged through his veins and his legs trembled. He choked back vomit. He hated water. He hated dark places. I’m going to die down there, he thought.

  But maybe not. Maybe the billion-dollar flood control system would deposit him somewhere far away, beyond the reach of his Agency handlers. Maybe he would survive, regroup, marshal his wits and resources. Maybe then he could somehow find Katrin and steal her away to safety.

  He stared down the massive storm drain. It was dark and terrifying, the subject of nightmares, and a wave of dizziness came over him. At least this way, there’s a chance, he told himself.

&nbs
p; Hayward took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and leapt feet-first into the opening. His stomach lurched as his body accelerated into the blackness. His shoulder grazed the cold, slimy concrete of the drain wall and his body twisted in midair. He braced for another impact with the hard concrete, but it never came. He fell further and faster. He howled in fear.

  He plunged underwater. The speed of his fall carried him deep beneath the surface. His body seized in the brutal, shocking cold. His eyes opened wide in panic as the pressure mounted and his lungs demanded air. There was no light to see by and he had no sense of where the surface was. His lungs screamed for a breath, his limbs flailed, and all around him was roaring darkness.

  His body accelerated with some swift, unseen current. He clawed and kicked in desperation, praying he was swimming up toward the surface and not deeper underwater, knowing he had only moments before his body succumbed.

  Primordial, biological panic set in. His diaphragm spasmed and his limbs flailed. To his horror, his mouth opened. Cold, dirty water flooded in. He knew his last moments were upon him.

  Then, suddenly, he was back at the surface. His body needed air. Against his own will, he inhaled. The water in his throat flooded his lungs, and the current tossed him under again. His vision closed in and he saw stars, his senses desperate for breath, his arms and legs thrashing against the inexorable downward pull.

  The roiling current tossed him to the surface again, long enough for a vomiting cough and a sputtering breath and a gasp of panicked exhaustion. Then came a violent corner and Hayward’s body slammed into the concrete. A bright flash erupted inside his skull and he lost consciousness. The water carried his limp body deeper into the darkness.

  8

  There was a beeping noise and a firm grasp on his shoulder. And suddenly, the brilliant light of day.

  A human face, inches from his own, issued exhortations in a language he didn’t understand. The nurse switched to English. “Please calm down, sir,” she said. “You’re safe.”